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St
Michael, Ingoldisthorpe

There
are some churches that you always remember. This
may be for a variety of reasons: a historical
treasure perhaps, or simply the feel of the place
(what my friend Phil calls the wowfactor),
or the setting, or a confrontation you had with
the keyholder, or any number of other reasons.
Ingoldisthorpe, pronounced in-g'l-thorp,
I will always remember simply for being
beautiful.

At first, things weren't
promising. The long Norfolk coastline, more than
eighty miles long, is home to hundreds and
hundreds of open churches, for miles inland. Very
few are kept locked, and even then there are
keyholders (I can only think of three churches
within a few miles of the Norfolk coast that are
locked without keyholders). But here, not far
from the busy resorts of Heacham and Hunstanton,
we found St Michael, which in itself is no mean
feat, with its doors barred.

There was
a keyholder notice, but I was already pretty
disorientated by finding the church. The suburbs of
Ingoldisthorpe twist and turn in a convoluted manner, and
the church is quite hidden from the road. We found a
sign, but it seemed to lead into someone's private drive.
I suspect that the church was once in open fields, but
that these were sold off for housing development. Now,
the narrow churchyard is surrounded on all four sides by
private gardens. In fact, the keyholder is not far off,
but be aware that in early June the gardens were already
overgrown enough to obscure the sign that bore the name
of the house.

But, in
all honesty, few Norfolk church keys are more worth
getting than this one, for St Michael contains what is
probably the best collection of late 19th and early 20th
century glass of any small church in East Anglia. It is
like stepping inside a jewel. And a living jewel at that;
for some unaccountable reason, the revision of Pevsner
describes St Michael as redundant. Well, it certainly
isn't, and there is a real sense of a working church.

Before you
get to the glass, the font is a curiosity - it was once a
square Norman font, but somebody, probably in the 13th
century, thought that it would look better octagonal. It
doesn't, I think, but that is what we are left with. The
pretty screen is also a fine medieval survival. Under the
tower is a set of three brasses of Agnes Bigge and her
parents, in all their puritan glory in the early years of
the 17th century. If I had been that ugly then I do not
think I would have wanted a brass made of me, but there
they are, warts and all.

St Michael
was almost entirely rebuilt in the late 14th century,
when Dec was becoming Perp, and is a harmonious textbook
example of this moment. And then, in 1855, George
Pritchett came along. He was commissioned by the Rector,
William Beckett, to refurbish the church, and this was
done very well. It provides the setting for the jewels.
Incidentally, Pritchett also rebuilt the neighbouring
Rectory for the fabulous cost of £2,000, about half a
million in todays money. In the 1850s, many churches were
built for less.

The bulk
of the glass was commissioned from the O'Connors, and no
expense was spared. This was augmented over the following
seven or so decades. Frederick Preedy did the fine south
aisle east window, which depicts Christ walking on the
water, the Ascension, and the raising of Lazarus, the
last of these is rather chilling. Also in this aisle is
work by Robert Bayne, featuring William Morris's daughter
May as a model.

All of it
is of the highest quality. Apart from the work of the
O'Connors, the most interesting moments are to be found
in the chancel and the north aisle. The chancel north
window depicts, in its upper lights, scenes from the life
of Thomas Beckett, son of the Rector. He emigrated to New
Brunswick, and died there in 1863. We see him in a
photographic style sitting at his desk, and lying with
his gun in the woods. Another image shows the ships in
Saint John harbour.

In the
north aisle is a superb composition of 1934 by
Christopher Webb. It depicts Faith and Hope in one
window, and to the left is Charity. Charity forms the
largest of the three figures. She protects two children,
including a girl with the bobbed haircut of the time. The
child holds a spray of may blossom, a sign of rebirth.

I thought how poignant this image would have been in the
mid 1930s, at the height of an industrial and
agricultural depression, with the rise of Fascism in
Europe, a time of strikes and hunger marches. I think
this window is marvellous. You can see images of it, and
many others, below.

That
Ingoldisthorpe was fully in the Anglo-catholic tradition
can be deduced from the altar and reredos. Even if the
tradition has gone, these survive. St Michael is a
perfect example of the Church of England at the height of
its powers, at the summit of its artistic integrity, and
should not be missed.